People losing their temper make fists. We shake our clenched fists at people, and public transportation, (or teh gods) in frustration. IMO it's likely to have been a factor, as it seems so deeply set into our instinct.

I doubt humans just now learned to make a proper fist. Our ancient ancestors likely weren't oblivious to self injury.

People losing their temper make fists. We shake our clenched fists at people, and public transportation, (or teh gods) in frustration. IMO it's likely to have been a factor, as it seems so deeply set into our instinct.

If we have something sharp or blunt in the hand when we get pissed off enough, we don't drop the item in question and brandish empty fists, as an "instinctual-fist" hypothesis would indicate. We brandish the item at whomever or whatever is pissing us off. Only if there is nothing at hand when anger strikes do we wave a fist.

Might it not, then, be more likely that the brandished fist is only an instinctive brandishing of something that would have been in our hand, had we the choice? This can be evidence of weapons being so ingrained in us as to have become instinctive.

Fists as instinct? Again, we don't drop-club-and-brandish-fist. We brandish the club (or whatever) when sufficiently enraged.

As a former biologist, at least at the B.S. level, I think we see people ascribing a lot of things to "evolution" for which I at least can't imagine a mechanism. Natural selection weeds out maladaptive mutations. It doesn't find a problem and then solve it.

Did an inability to make a proper fist result in our ancestors either dying before mating or failing to find a mate? No? Then the fist was just along for the ride during the evolutionary process.

Did an inability to grasp and manipulate objects result in our ancestors either dying before mating or failing to find a mate? You bet your ass.

To what degree has the ability to fistfight (compared to, say, the ability to develop and wield weapons) played any role in evolutionary and/or history-making events among humans? What's the actual evidence? Right.

Evidence? Evidence about evolution? Really? About some **** that you can't fucking test? My ninja, come the **** on. Have there ever been any experiments designed to test any theory of evolution? That ever possibly could be?

Originally Posted by Goju - joe

being a dick with skill is only marginally better than being a dick without skill.

Evidence? Evidence about evolution? Really? About some **** that you can't fucking test? My ninja, come the **** on. Have there ever been any experiments designed to test any theory of evolution? That ever possibly could be?

You're going to get some bites on that one, even around here with people who are familiar with you. I look forward to it.

Evidence? Evidence about evolution? Really? About some **** that you can't fucking test?

So, according to you, there's no evidence of tooth-marks on bones indicating either predation or scavenging?

There are, in fossilized remains of humans and prehumans, no signs of predation by toothed and clawed predators, as well as no sign of skeletal damage from weapons wielded by others of their own species? Really? Look it up. There is.

What there is no fossil evidence of is--ready?--damage via fist.

Have there ever been any experiments designed to test any theory of evolution? That ever possibly could be?

That depends, radiant genius, on whether you consider examination of the fossil record an "experiment".